International Business Machines Corporation
MULTI-VALUE PRIMARY KEYS FOR PLURALITY OF UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS OF ENTITIES

Abstract:

A computer-implemented method for unambiguously identifying entities in a database system may be provided. The method comprises storing data items as records with different attributes in a table of a database, storing naming rules for selected combinations of the attributes of the data items, and prioritizing the naming rules. The method also comprises determining a hash value for each of the selected combinations of the attributes of the data items, and identifying duplicate data items using the determined hash values and the prioritized naming rules.